One of the basic operational limitations of anti-air warfare is the operational speed of the search radar and the length of time necessary to process targets through to weapons control. These limitations are due primarily to the limitations imposed by environmental conditions on the detection and tracking capability of the radar operator. In the past, various types of automatic radar processing systems have been developed. However, the design of such systems are constrained by the physical properties of the radar environment, the effect of the environment on the radar signal characteristics, and the acceptable false alarm rate which is established by the user. Moreover, none of the prior automatic systems have provided a comprehensive system which takes into account all of these aforementioned constraints. Prior systems usually adopted one of two possible courses: provide individually designed, special purpose hardware; or use general purpose hardware in combination with data processors. Of course both approaches have had individual drawbacks and deficiencies, not the least of which has been system cost versus end result. There have also been many automatic units employed to perform individual specialized radar system functions such as adaptive video threshold units and automatic radar signal processors. Completely automated radar data processing systems have not heretofore been readily available, due in large part to the unavailability of compact digital data processors. Moreover, such fully automated systems fail to afford the operator with the opportunity to take a systems management position and thereby participate in setting up processing conditions, so as to better optimize system performance. System size as well as cost is also an important consideration in any automated radar data processing system, since, if intended for shipboard use, for example, space is always at a premium. Past systems of the automatic variety were also generally deficient in keeping the users informed on a real-time basis. Even though a system may be almost totally self-sufficient, i.e., detection, processing and, say, gun control is carried on with no operator interventions, it is important to keep the users apprised of the current target status and to permit the operator to assume a system management position at times. Thus, it is felt necessary and desirable to involve the operator not only as a failure monitoring operation and to build confidence in the users such that they do not feel totally inadequate or in the dark as to system performance, but also as a source of target processing control, when appropriate. It may be seen, then, that while various radar processing system components have been available, a totally, integrated, automated system which gives a high level of performance has not heretofore been available.